YOUTHS ON REMAND. (Hansard, 4 May 1931)

§ Mr. CADOGAN
The case I desire to raise is not one which needs much elaboration, and I appreciate the point that if every hon. Member thought it necessary, when he received at Question Time a reply which he regarded as unsatisfactory to bring up the question on the Adjournment, it would be very embarrassing for the House. It is only desirable that this should be done in cases of urgency and importance and I hope the House will agree that this is one. I raised the question some seven or eight years ago on the Home Office Vote, and the lapse of time has not made it any less urgent. It also formed the subject of a recommendation by a Departmental Committee which reported as long ago as 1927; it formed part of a wider question which, no doubt, the House, whatever Government may be in power, will have to take into consideration in the course of the next year or two.
Put briefly, my case is this: Youths on remand, that is to say those who, in the sight of the law, are innocent, and may ultimately be Proved in fact to be innocent, are Bent to prison for such time as they are on remand. I have not the most recent figures available, but these are probably not wide of the mark. In each year no fewer than 2,000 young men and 300 young women between 16 and 21 years of age are received into prison on remand. Until recently, they were sent to Wandsworth Prison, which is a convict prison where executions take place—a pleasant kind of hostel in which to accommodate youths who may be innocent! The present Home Secretary is changing the place of detention from Wandsworth Prison to Wormwood Scrubs, which, although it is not a con- 170 vict prison, is a prison of the star class of prisoners and is a prison with all the taint of prison in the atmosphere. It is quite true that these youths are separated and placed in a separate part of the prison, but anyone who has studied the subject at all will agree that, however much you segregate any section of the prison population, there is a contamination from which they cannot escape. There is this further consideration, that we all know that youths entertain a wholesale dread and horror of prison life and all that it means, and that is a spirit that we should encourage and foster.
I should like to read a very short extract from the report of the Departmental Committee. I think the hon. Gentleman who represents the Home Office will not accuse me of isolating sentences from their context. I am sure the House will agree with me that no context could justify such categorical statements as these: We are satisfied that a much better system of education and observation is required for young offenders on remand. Though Wandsworth Prison has done much excellent work in this direction, it is greatly hampered by its surroundings. These examinations ought not to be carried out in prison. I have read a letter from which I ask leave to read an extract. It is a letter from one whose business it has been for many years to interrogate these youths in order to supply the necessary reports. This is the extract from the letter of a gentleman whose business it is to find out all about the home circumstances of these boys, and to make home visits in order to supply information to the courts: My own view is that it is a fatal error to have these boys whether on remand or on detention in the same precincts as adult prisoners. It is quite impossible to segregate them adequately and prevent contamination. It is an absolute scandal that this should continue, and that innocent youths, or those who have not been proved guilty, should be made familiar with prison life and exposed to the contamination of a prison atmosphere. What was the gist of the Home Secretary's reply a year ago? It was that financial considerations made it impossible for the time being for the Government to implement the findings of the Departmental Committee. If time permitted, I could 171 produce figures to show that there is no greater extravagance than the manufacture of criminals—and you are manufacturing criminals by this process. At the same time, I am not putting forward a full demand. The Departmental Committee recommended that there should be an observation centre, a remand home in each area in London, the Midlands and the North. Quite apart from the fact that this is not the season to put forward such a suggestion, I do say that it is absolutely imperative that there should be some make-shift accommodation found pending a time when we hope the financial stringency will not be so severe. The Home Secretary made a further reply to a supplementary question, to the effect that he was open to any suggestions. I am very glad to hear that, but surely it is for him to make suggestions. I do not know what Government buildings there are. The Home Secretary has at his disposal the collective administrative knowledge and experience of a great Government Department, and I cannot believe that it is outside the competence of that Department to devise some accommodation other than within prison walls. The Home Secretary is at this moment considering an experiment which I investigated the other day in Oxfordshire, of segregating young recidivists between the ages of 22 and 28 in a separate establishment. Accommodation has been found for them, and I am encouraged to infer from that that it can be found for youths on remand.
There is a saying, which is so old and hackneyed that one hesitates to introduce it into a speech in this House, that the strength of a chain is to be tested by its weakest link. It is not the weakest link for which I am appealing to-night. So far from strengthening the weakest link, we are running risks with the strong links, and I say that the Home Secretary, if this abuse continues for a day longer, is undoubtedly shouldering a very grave responsibility. I speak as one who for some years has had an official association with the treatment of young offenders, and I feel that I should be failing in my duty as a Member of Parliament if I did not press the urgency of this matter and have this grievance redressed. If the Under-Secretary can convince me that I have over-stated my case, or have made 172 a mountain out of a molehill, I can assure the House that no one will be more relieved than I am myself.

§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Short)
The hon. Member has displayed great public spirit in connection with the welfare of young people. He is a member of the Borstal Association, and I can pay him the tribute of saying that he has rendered real public service so far as the welfare of these young people is concerned. It is true that the Young Offenders Committee recommended that young people between the ages of 16 and 21, when remanded or committed for trial, should be sent to some remand home or observation centre, so that inquiries might be made respecting their character, physical and mental defects, and so forth, and there can be no disagreement as to the desirability of preventing such young persons from coming into contact with prison conditions or with the stigma of imprisonment. The Eon. Member speaks of these young people as being innocent, but let me say at once that many of them plead guilty, and many of them, after remand or after being committed for trial, are found to be guilty; and, indeed, I am advised that the courts usually seek to satisfy themselves as to the guilt of these young persons before even putting them on remand. What the court is concerned about is the appropriate treatment that they should receive, and my right hon. Friend agrees that, when the court proposes to deal with these young people by probation or by a system of fines, it would be desirable and advisable to keep them out of prison. I have to admit that at present there is no such place as a remand home or observation centre to which to send them, and if alternative accommodation is to be provided my right hon. Friend thinks that it is desirable that it should be an adequate building, properly constructed, adequately equipped and thoroughly staffed; and I cannot agree that it would be desirable to place these youths in any sort of Government building, which was suggested when this question was put across the Floor of the House, or, indeed, that it would be desirable to put them, as one hon. Member suggested, in church buildings. These young people 173 vary in age from 16 to 21. Some of them are first offenders; others have several convictions. They are young people with criminal habits.

§ Mr. CADOGAN
Not necessarily.

§ Mr. SHORT
Many of them, I say, possess criminal habits and some suffer from sex perversion. It is desirable and indeed essential that there should be separate accommodation and proper supervision while they are in these remand homes and while they are engaged at work during the day we have to see that they are kept in secure custody. There must be proper discipline. Many of them are troublesome, many are lawless, many engage in fights and in indecent behaviour and we have to avoid anything in the nature of what might be termed or considered conspiracies to defeat justice. It is essential that there should be effective medical examination to enable the courts to be properly and effectively assisted. My right hon. Friend therefore, cannot entertain the idea of any makeshift establishment. What ho forward to is the carrying out of this recommendation of the Young Offenders Committee. He wants to see a building properly constructed. He wants separate sleeping quarters, security against escape, workshop, and above all there must be grounds for exercise. You have to store their property. You have to provide adequate means for washing, for baths, for kitchens, for medical officers, and these places have to be effectively staffed. A remand home should be a fairly large establishment. There are always from 80 to 100 young people on remand. My right hon. Friend has made some improvement. He has transferred these young people to Wormwood Scrubs, which consists of four separate blocks, two accommodating adults who are serving their first sentence.

§ Mr. McSHANE
Is that 100 for the whole year?

§ Mr. SHORT
No; it is at any particular moment. One of the remaining blocks is for young prisoners who have been sentenced to short terms of imprisonment and Borstal licensees whose licences have been revoked, and the other is for young people on remand or awaiting trial, young people who have 174 been convicted at a court of summary jurisdiction and are awaiting a Borstal sentence at quarter sessions, and young people who have been sentenced to Borstal and are awaiting allocation to an institution.

§ Mr. CADOGAN
I was only speaking of those on remand.

§ Mr. SHORT
I was only explaining what Wormwood Scrubs accommodates, and that was leading me to state that the inmates of this particular block where these young people are accommodated is separate and distinct, as the hon. Member admitted. Within this block are all the services and conditions which I have enumerated and which I have suggested as being essential for the adequate accommodation and supervision of these young people. We are satisfied that Wormwood Scrubs is the best that we can do at present. The Prison Commissioners have not thought fit, owing to financial stringency, to embark upon the expenditure of a large sum of money for the provision of a remand home for the carrying out of this particular recommendation. I am advised that such a home would cost anything between£60,000 and£70,000. This matter must be considered in relation to other things which are being done. The hon. Member knows that we are building a Borstal institution at a cost of between£160,000 and£170,000 and a second one will, I am advised, be necessary.

§ Mr. CADOGAN
That expenditure is over a period of some years.

§ Mr. SHORT
Certainly. My right hon. Friend looks with favour upon the proposed solution of this problem. Ho would like to see a remand home and an observation centre set up, and I am advised that when the circumstances are more propitious he will be willing and anxious to see that recommendation carried into effect.

§ Mr. EDE
I think the country owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan) for bringing this matter forward. It is a subject that deserves the very earnest attention of this House at this particular juncture. I am disappointed at the reply made by the Under-Secretary of State, because it 175 seems to me that he has missed a very essential point. Those of us who remember the work done by the late Chair-man of the London Sessions, Sir Robert Wallace, in dealing with this type of juvenile offender, feel that just at the moment when unemployment is so rife amongst these youths from 16 to 21 years there is a great danger of their drifting into classes of crime through finding that these prisons are not the terrible place they have been held out to be. Personally speaking, as a magistrate, I always do what I can to make sure that no juvenile ever gets near a prison. I believe in keeping him as far away as possible, and I regret very much that because the standard has been set so high nothing is to be done. This seems to me, from the answer of the Under-Secretary, to be one of those cases where the best is being the enemy of the good. I believe it would be a good thing if we could get a place where the chairman of Quarter Sessions or a bench of magistrates could send a youth for a week's or a few weeks' re- 176 flection before he was bound over or otherwise dealt with as is thought desirable for his future welfare without bringing him inside a prison to see people who have been convicted actually carrying on the routine of prison life.
I hope that the Government will be able to find it within their means in the very near future not to carry out perhaps the elaborate scheme of which my hon. Friend has spoken, and which those of us who are interested in this matter would like to see carried out, but a reasonable scheme within the means of the country at the moment, to help these youths who, through circumstances which they cannot control, are in grave danger of increasing the criminal population unless we can deal with them, on the early occasions when they come into conflict with the law in such a way as will make it easy for them to regain the paths of virtue.